SGOTM 15 - Unusual Suspects

Well played Xcal. That was a rough patch to get through. :goodjob:

At least the loss of Confucianism is all the more reason to go straight to Math > Construction after Archery. We need to get a handle on the neighbors :hammer:.
 
Maybe switch to OrgRel soon for the 25% building bonus. It won't help Delhi with buildings (only 3 hammers), nor Drona until Hinduism is spread there, but it'll help Bolly and Bombay, and we can build a Hindu missionary for Drona without a monastery. Happiness is becoming a concern as we grow, which is why I started temples in a couple places. I started a FW in Delhi, in part to keep it from exceeding its happy cap, but also because we could use another; lots of stuff to do, including cottages around Bolly, Delhi, and Drona.

I'd have the worker by Vijay finish the deer camp (and give its food to Vijay when it comes out of revolt), then move west and finish the forest chop toward a granary. That'll give enough hammers to whip the granary when Vijay reaches pop2. After the chop, finish farming and roading the wheat. Move some/all of the axes in Vijay north to finally clear out the dang barbs, keep an eye on Hammy, and see if there's anything but mountains in that unexplored nook in the NE. I'd build a granary, lighthouse, and library there. Once Vijay gets on its feet, and when Bombay has finished a granary, give the deer to Bombay so it can finally grow (though we'll lose the gold for several turns).

I'd like to have some Drona units escort our Woody2 axe (Lotus?) into Japan's forests to pillage roads, etc. and see what's inside their borders. As long as he sticks to forests he's pretty invincible. I don't think we should try to take Osaka without cats. Keep track of cultural control over the corn. Japan still has only 1%, indicating that it hasn't even built a monument yet. When its share starts going up we'll have around 7 turns before the corn flips to Japan (based on test games). It would be nice for Drona's borders to pop (to 40%) before Osaka's to discomfort Toku. It's something like 28 turns to go with just our monument, but if we could spread Hinduism and/or finish a temple (both good to raise the happy cap and allow more growth), that would speed things up.

Tech-wise, I'm conflicted. Math and Construction would be very handy, but CoL+Math would let us bulb Civil Service (and get a big boost in Bolly from Bureau) with the Prophet we're going to get on T92. The Prophet could also be used to bulb CoL, but that seems wasteful to me. Should we hang onto him for later bulbing, or settle, or make a shrine? Just for the sake of argument, a Christian shrine in Drona would really put the cultural pressure on Osaka, and be useful for a Cultural win.

Delhi needs a garrison for happiness. Now that we have Hunting, Bolly could build a scout to replace the fogbusting warrior in the south; send the warrior to Delhi. We'll also want a few archers from Bolly to defend Drona and Vijay.

Our workboat has sailed around the western island without sighting new land. Figuring that we can't get past Hammy's borders I brought him back to check out the land to our south/east.

Do we want to settle more? The cow/deer site N of Drona looks best to me. Will anyone trade techs with us if we get Alphabet? Should we gift deer to Hammy when we have it hooked up? We have another ~5 turns before we can cancel our gold gift to Hammy--should we leave it alone? (I'd like to at least try to get on his good side, not least to avoid war on 2 fronts.) When do we want to get serious about the AP? I'd say Bolly needs to build other stuff first, but any time it isn't clear what to do, put some hammers toward the AP. I would not chop any more forests around Bolly until we have Math and Bureau.

[Edit: I did not adjust the espi allocation when we met Hattie so Egypt is probably getting some points.]

Who's up?
 
From the Progress page charts it sure looks like nobody else has had to go on a war footing--except maybe Phoenix Rising, about 10 turns after us. Well, it's the hand we were dealt, let's make the most of it. We have an army now, although we didn't want it. I vote for Math-->Construction. Let's take out Japan.

Who's up?
 
And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I
wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and
guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill,
KILL, KILL." And I started jumpin up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL," and
he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down
yelling, "KILL, KILL." And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me,
sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy."

Didn't feel too good about it.

But I still agree with the plan :ar15:

Unfortunately, I can't take the next set, my schedule is crazy.
 
From the Progress page charts it sure looks like nobody else has had to go on a war footing--except maybe Phoenix Rising, about 10 turns after us. Well, it's the hand we were dealt, let's make the most of it. We have an army now, although we didn't want it. I vote for Math-->Construction. Let's take out Japan.

Who's up?

vra379971 looks likes he's spoiling for a fight :spear:
 
Noooo...

I'm quite comfy in my lazy-cowhide-rocking chair, thanks for asking tho!

But yes...Construct + CS sounds perfect.
 
Good work Xcal :goodjob: I knew you could hold Drona :mischief:

Nothin like a good early game tussle to get the blood flowing.

Toku seems to have foregone archers for axes. 3 more in Osaka. A 2 for 1 axe rush may take Osaka. Thinking maybe we should bring 2 axes down from the north including the CRII and prepare for a counter attack after his next rush. Could use a medic along the way. Not sure we need Cats for Osaka, but definitely agree with Math and Constr next for rest of the real Toku. Don't see a whole lot of trade opportunities until Toku is ready to settle the for for tech that he will be giving to us.

Will take a closer look at the situation tomorrow.
 
Hi, I'm back. I can play the next set if you want. But first I need to re-familiarize myself with what's happened and what we want to accomplish.

Does anyone still think culture VC can be faster than a pure military slug-fest? The slug-fest part seems unavoidable. Tough conditions for culture vc (not to mention religion VC).

I'm back on the Construction bandwagon.... we can kill anything with enough cats. Confu founded iafal... not unexpected.

I think we cannot wait to settle the remaining decent city sites in our immediate neighborhood. We win this war by outproducing, and that requires more cities.

I'm most interested in hearing Xcal's thoughts on how he would proceed from here, since he has the best feel for the situation. But I'll open the save tonight and have a peek around.

As for GPro... right now I am thinking that settling him makes most sense. They'll be more of them soon enough.

Forget OR... I think Theo is the way to go. The only thing we need to build fast is units, imo. We're not stopping in the middle of a war to build missionaries, are we?:confused:
 
Path to construction sounds good, Toku must die eventually. If no one else DOW's us we could perhaps finish Japan altogether. Let's adapt to the changing circumstances and see how easily these 'gawas fall. Maybe I'll even learn something.
If we consider a military victory we might still want the AP, all those hammers from temples and monasteries make me :drool:
I'd suggest not canceling the gold to Hammy unless we need it for some other purpose. Letting the deal continue allows us to cancel it without waiting if/when needed. Does anyone have open borders with anyone (that we know of?) Aw, of course they have. Otherwise Hattygawa could not have gotten through to contact us. Maybe someone will eventually want to trade our stuff, at least for gpt.
 
Hi, I'm back. I can play the next set if you want...
Does anyone still think culture VC can be faster than a pure military slug-fest? The slug-fest part seems unavoidable. Tough conditions for culture vc (not to mention religion VC).
That would be great if you can play, kcd! Circumstances have forced us toward an aggressive game, and although I'd rather not discard Culture or Religion yet, I don't see any harm (for the moment) in acting as if we're committed to a military win.

I think we cannot wait to settle the remaining decent city sites in our immediate neighborhood. We win this war by outproducing, and that requires more cities.
I think the deer/cow site is pretty good for this--fast growth, decent production. The sites on the southern shore will need more work, a fishing boat, and maybe a border pop to get going. Also, I'm less sure exactly where to put them, so I go with the easy decision. ;) But if we can afford the hammers, settling another site would be good.

I'm most interested in hearing Xcal's thoughts on how he would proceed from here, since he has the best feel for the situation.
Apart from staying in Theoc, most of my post 822 is still valid. Let's get our cities to grow and recover from whip unhappiness (maybe with a cheap temple here or there) so we get more commerce and hammers now and then whip them later for cats. SH's idea of taking Osaka now is worth looking into. You and the other fast/early war experts can evaluate that much better than I. There's lots of nice defensive ground to the east and south so we should be able to hold Osaka when we take it. I'd really like to get a Woody2 axe behind Toku's lines to pillage roads, terrorize workers, demolish pastures, etc. Up north, I'd like to get into those forests for sight lines and good defense. If it looks OK, yeah, bring that CR2 axe back east.

As for GPro... right now I am thinking that settling him makes most sense. They'll be more of them soon enough.
Yeah, I think so. If we build a temple in Bolly we can run a priest and get another Prophet out in 20 turns, which should be pretty good timing to finish CoL (after Math and Construction) and then bulb Civil Service. Vijay should grow quickly and can run scientists for an academy once we get CoL. After that we can run artists if we're going for Culture, but we have other needs now.

[Edit: Note that we (or Toku) will need Alphabet if we're going to extort any techs out of him.]
 
Does anyone still think culture VC can be faster than a pure military slug-fest? The slug-fest part seems unavoidable. Tough conditions for culture vc (not to mention religion VC).

A few reasons to think the culture is still an option.
1. When we take out Toku we will hav the requisite pre-conditions for culture.
a. 3 religions
b. 10 cities
c. marble

2. none of the artist producing wonders are gone.
3. we have defensible borders for a while.
4. Tech Broker setting will slow down AI.

Key Challenge - surviving long enough.

A few reasons to think we can win AP.
1. Building AP helps us in any event from coalition of enemies (ie. we should consider getting regardless).
2. Diplomation is viable strategy and synergies well with war. As we don't have vassals taking a bunch of cities and giving one back with Hindu may be a lot easier than taking them all and worrying about culture flips.

Key Challenge: Getting an AI to vore for us.

Agree on next phase to take out Toku. Math/Constr then perhaps alpha if Toku doesn't have to settle war for tech.

Key question: Do we start on AP or not?
 
Forget OR... I think Theo is the way to go. The only thing we need to build fast is units, imo. We're not stopping in the middle of a war to build missionaries, are we?:confused:
Theo only helps if we have hindu in the city. We are Spiritual and can switch back and forth with ease. The idea of OR would be if we were building buildings (like AP), or to build missionary(s) so that Theo would be useful everywhere. We could build incomplete units while in OR and then complete them in Theo.
Just don't dismiss civic changes entirely.

Other than that, I will await your studying of the save and XCal's posts, then give my green light. :p
 
Theo only helps if we have hindu in the city. We are Spiritual and can switch back and forth with ease. The idea of OR would be if we were building buildings (like AP), or to build missionary(s) so that Theo would be useful everywhere. We could build incomplete units while in OR and then complete them in Theo.
Just don't dismiss civic changes entirely.

Other than that, I will await your studying of the save and XCal's posts, then give my green light. :p

Another note on Theo... it prevents non-state-religion spread. Since we'd prefer all spontaneous spread to be hindu (not christian), its still a good call.

Anyhow... enough theorizing... time to check out the save and come up with a plan... I'm thinking short-term for the moment.
 
OK, after looking at the save, I think I would be a little tougher on our slaves. :whipped:

I would skip OR for now. I think the only building I would finish would be the library in Bolly. I think workers should not be cottaging, nor should we be working cottages in general.

Dehli is set up well for 4->2 2-pop whipping units... its got Hindu and food. Its only got 2 tiles that need working. Grow to 4 while building an axe (5 or less hammers), 2-pop whip the axe. Griw to 4 while building an axe, whip to pop 2. Wash rinse repeat. Usually the whip overflow could be directed into the temple or whatever, but maybe its better to build just units, overflow to the units. This way, we get a unit every other turn or so from Dehli.

Bolly is also whipable. Its not as efficient as from 4-pop city, though. Long-term we want cottages matured etc. I suspect the best use of Bolly is to hire 2 scientists and get math/currency faster.

Osaka has no culture border, so cats don't do much there (unless you count suicide - which isn't useful if as I plan we attacking when there are only 2 units there anyhow). However, I would wait until he brings those axes out and wastes them somehow. Then we do it like real men with overwhelming numbers and no seige. But it can wait for seige if you want... because we need enough units to both defend Drona and choke Toku. I would not start the choke without at least 4 axes and an archer. But get to that point asap. How much defense needed in Drona depends on what happens to the axes in and around Osaka. So fo0r now its a military buildup, and watch-and-see. Then when ready move out with a pillaging/choking axe stack (archer to protect eventual chariot nuisance, which will come eventually and we save lots of time having it there already).

Bombay work the camp and then camp/gold... then 4->2 2-pop whips.

VJ - stomp the barb warrior. Promote woddy2 axe and move to forest hill while moving shock1 axe to grass hill. Fortify and hold. Heal the city raider axe and send to Drona. Unpromoted 5xp axe to Drona immediately.

Bolly can build a scout to replace the warrior which moves to garrison Dehli. That scout will be our super-medic once we get a GG.

wb explore south.

workers... chop all forest to 1 turn from chopped. No forest chops finish before Math. After math, clear-cut them all into axe-handles.

Don't worry so much about unhappy. Most of that comes from population, not whipping. So we should whip away those sad folks. Fewer folks, fewer unhappy folks. ;)

Maybe this sounds brutal but... no, its simply pragmatic productive efficiency. Lets do it like we mean it. Whip unhappiness goes away eventually, but axes are forever, baby!

By the time we have cats, the plan is for Japan to be a crippled weakling on its begging knees. And we will show them no mercy. (There are no techs at this stage worth the bother of extorting, imho).


You'll note this is more of a proposition than a true plan. Can't micro a war anyhow, since it is a matter of responding to varying conditions. But I can do a little better on the details of the whip timing and so on. But it isn't worth the bother of making this into a PPP (to about construction, going math-constr) if you guys are squeamish about prolific use of the whip or some turns of unhappy people. Basically I'm advocating that we temperarily put off trying to do anything other than build an overwhelming force of cats. Any unit will be able to do the mop-up. But the way to win wars with minimal force is to have a sustainable choke, so I'd start choking asap.

The VC goals etc can be discussed after we get this task out of the way and can see more clearly what we have to deal with and what we have to do it with.
 
BTW... I see we have hunting. The archer can be replaced with a spear in the choke stack, though an archer will do.

Is there a test-game? I think we could each do some testing up to construction. My goal would be to maximize number of units by that time, while keeping the time to construction a minimum.
 
Yeah, pretty brutal. I don't see the point of whipping Bombay when it grows so slowly; we have to work the gold and the deer and that's only an excess of 3 fpt--without a granary it'll take 7 or 8 turns to grow one pop. Delhi will be of little/no use with another whip or two--I suppose we could have it slow-build a worker or settler after that. Speaking of settlers, what happened to the expansion-for-production idea? What tiles would you remove to run 2 scientists in Bolly? Taking them off cottages seems counterproductive for research, and taking them off mines cuts our best city's production by ~40%. Would you whip away mines in Drona? I can see whipping to get an army quickly, temporarily hobbling our civ to help it expand and neuter an enemy, but do we really need that many more units to take Osaka and throttle Kyoto? I'd save most of the whipping for cats, but that's ~15 turns away. But like I said, I'm too conservative when it comes to wars. The latest test game is at T74, found in the usual place. I don't know when I'll have time to update it--been tired and gonna be busy the next several days.
 
Thoughts about our up coming endless war :trouble:

Do that crazy whipping thing you do to the couple of cities where this will work best, but leave the others to cottage grow. In the long run tech speed is power.

I always try to aim for at least a 5 to 1 advantage over the AIs in units lost. Make them take the crappy shots, never let anything survive to upgrade, avoid situations where they get more than one shot. In regards to Osaka, take it when the opportunity presents itself, but do not try to hold it until our power numbers top Toku's, use it as a place to sucker Toku into filling only to have his units wiped out again and again.

And above all, have fun and let your inner psychotic go nuts. :mwaha:
 
OK, thanks for the feedback. I agree that without a granary, the whip is less effective. Also, until we have cats the amount of choking we do asap will have little impact on the eventual result. So I'll amend the plan to the following:

PPP:

General goal: Get to construction at warp speed. make supporting units for cat attack, take Osaka if good odds are available, otherwise hold strong defensive positions and let him come to us. use Osaka as killing zone rather than permanent base if it can be taken. Sneak a 4-stack (3 axe + spear or archer) behind his lines to scout and pillage but remain safe.

Basic outline:
Dehli -- I still think Dehli is set up for whipping axes. Should get at least 6 axes from there before construction.
Drona -- whipping as possible while maintaining citizens on mines and farmed resopurces (5 pop).
VJ -- continue with granary
Bolly -- grow to 8, work two cottages and hire 2 sci from mines (after library completes), build workers/settlers to hold at 8
Bombay -- work gold and deer. excess pop gets whipped.

Workers: finish ongoing improvements, then pre-chop 8 forests inside cultural borders (total 16 worker turns). Since we are probably 10-15 turns from construction, they have time to make one more cottage at Bolly and a farm on the wheat before the prechopping).

GPro (with small chance Gsci by pop-time in about 5 turns): settle in Bolly/build academy in Bolly.


Unit moves - as previously stated.

Diplo: all our WHEOOHRN are actual, and the non-WHEOOHRN is also correctly reading (as per maintenance thread I checked). The Babylon Toku might hold off for a while as our power forces him to build more. But I'll keep an eye northward and pause if a stack is coming. That would be turtle-time for sure.

Pause conditions: if we have real bad luck on defense. If I think deviating from the plan might be wise. If we get another DOW. Get to construction (to plan the whipping/chopping of cats and plan of attack).

Also, we are 20 XP from a GG. The scout from Bolly (that will replace the fogbust warrior who will go to dehli) is to be promoted to Medic-3 and moved to Drona, if Toku plays as aggressive as he usually does. New fogbuster to be scrounged somewhere. Note, settling the crab site would do that... but I am in agreement that settling the cow/deer site would be more immediately useful and therefore is preferable.

If anyone wants to hold me to more detail, I am more than eager to hear your suggestions. I suck at planning the hammer counts beyond the immediate and follow-up build, so if you need more specifics I hope you can help provide them.

So in short, I accept the adminitions that it is prematuire to get too aggressive ourselves. I'll just set it up so all we need when contruction is done is to get those cats built, and built quickly.

Let me know what you want. I'm ready but in no hurry to play, and will be available for the next week or so if you want more discussion.

Your humble servant, kcd_whip
 
Sounds good. Running the sci's means we will probably not get a Prophet for our 2nd GP, thus no bulbing of Civil Service (after Math and CoL). Getting a Scientist may be better--I'm just pointing it out. Espi points are now split between Japan and Egypt--put them where you want them. The forest W of the northern deer is partially chopped, and the wheat is mostly farmed and 1/2 roaded. I believe I left a marker west of the little lake by Vijay saying that tile is 2/5 farmed. (Not sure that was best but I wanted the cowering worker to do something.) If we let it work both the wheat and deer, Vijay could grow quite quickly and be useful for whipping--perhaps more useful than letting Bombay grow (slowly). See what you think. I like the idea of using Osaka as a honey trap, but if there are better ways to lure Toku's units to their deaths, then feel free to keep it.

I PM'd neil about our WHEOOHRN-less DoW from Japan--said it wasn't a shock, that it might not be because of the putative bug, and that it probably didn't affect our play.

[Edit: Maybe use the future GG to Warlordize a warrior, or Lotus (our Woody2 axe). A Theocratized scout starts with 5 XPs so he'll only get to 25, one short of 5 promos. That means we can give him C1, Medic1,2,3 but no higher since he'll never gain any more XPs. If we use the GG on a combat unit we can do Wood1,2,3, plus C1 and Medic1. Lotus already has 6 XPs. True, he'd be the first unit attacked when defending in forest, but that'll just give him more XPs, and maybe he could eventually get to Medic3. Going with the scout is safer (because he'll never be killed unless the rest of the stack is gone) but a Woody3 axe has additional uses. Personal preference, but I really like Woody3's plus Medic. :)]
 
Hej... I'm hoping the lack of discussion or green lights is due to server being annoying again. So I'm waiting for the moment.

I usually go for the medic-3 first, and if doing a lot of warring supplement with a woody-3 when possible. I tend to lose woody-3 at much higher rate. Perhaps I am too aggressive? :mischief:
 
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